Synopsis

Tenchi Masaki may be a 17-year-old young man in rural Japan, but little does he know how bad his day will be getting. When a space pirate chased by a pair of Galaxy Police officers crash-lands at his grandfather's temple, Tenchi is sucked into a new adventure that will literally blast him off into outer space and beyond.

Tenchi Universe is a spin-off to Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki. Like its inspiration, the series remains a harem comedy, following the tangled life of Tenchi Masaki and his extraterrestrial visitors.

The story is similar to the first series: progressive events cause an assemblage of characters, mishaps create subplots, a threatening antagonist later appears and the group pits to stop them. The artwork is less shaded and the animation isn't as fluid but it all still looks good. Audio is backed with a library of different music, spot-on sound effects and believably acted voices. Bolder content, like nudity, swearing and sexual references, is a lot more minimal.

One of
the best points about Tenchi Universe is how nicely it transitions. Viewers don't get stuck with empty fillers; there is always something going on whether or not the story has picked up. As a result, fans of the OVA, and fans of harems in general, should enjoy this series.

After following the first 12 episodes of the Tenchi series, what else is there to do? Watch more Tenchi! Although the Universe concentrates on tons of side-stories about enemies, crazy scientist (i.e. Washu), cabbit romances, overthrowing a kingdom (you know, the general line), it is a good fill of episodes until you get to the &quot;in space&quot; storyline in which you are truly set into the &quot;we've got to get Jurai back&quot; storyline. It has it's great comedic moments, it's tearjerker moments (a certain &quot;death&quot; near the end of the series is a killer...) and the ever happy ending is great. Although I personally
love the OVA, the Universe is a great storyline to continue along especially because of all the chaos that happens thanks to Mihoshi.

What can you say? It's a mid-90's harem anime featuring your standard average Joe as the main protagonist.

So this is kind of hard to review since the nostalgia factor is really strong with this one. I can remember watching this as a kid and I couldn't WAIT for the next episode to come on. If we had DVD sets like we do now, I would have pooped my pants. That's why it will be difficult to be objective about the anime, it's one that I have so many fond memories of watching that the rose-tinted glasses are firmly welded to my face. I'll do
my best though....

Tenchi is an average Joe kinda guy, however he happens upon the most random, far-fetched, and by most all accounts implausible scenarios that land him with several strange women living in the house with him, his dad, and his grandpa. It's a classic example of the "harem anime" type and boy does it capitalize on it! Practically all the girls want a piece of Tenchi in some form or another. Their reasoning can be different, but Tenchi literally gets fought over. Every guy's dream, right? House full of hot women that just wanna get in your pants. As far as story goes, this was earlier on so it can get away with it. There is a branched-out storyline in both that makes them more interesting and epic, but I wouldn't exactly call it awe-inspiring. Carnival episode in Tenchi Universe is my favorite!!

For a 90's anime it looks pretty good as far as animation. Decently smooth, characters are proportional, and of course the explosions/lasers look cool. All in all it's good to look at.

I grew up watching the dub, so it's what I'm used to and feel most at home with. I can't say the voice acting is stellar, but it's not bad either. Tenchi can be kind of annoyingly nasally at times, but it almost comes off comedic for me given his personality. Ryoko's well done and so is Washu. The others are fine, but nothing special. Music wasn't especially memorable for me, but it wasn't annoying...standard fare on that.

Tenchi Muyo and Tenchi Universe use the same characters, but with different origin stories and interactions. I like Tenchi Muyo, but prefer Universe to be honest. Both series feature fan service, so just get ready for that if you watch this anime. Some of the characters are more interesting than others (Ryoko > Mihoshi), but there are at least comedic elements to all of them. Hands down, Washu is my favorite.

So why did I rank it amazingly entertaining? I put this in the same category as watching Beavis and Butthead for fart jokes and stupid cheap laughs...you're getting what you expect and it doesn't advertise otherwise. The show got kind of disappointing when they tried to get too serious, but overall I remember the funny episodes the most. True, the nostalgia glasses are on when I watch this show, but I still think it holds up on the entertaining portion. It's an anime that can put you in a good mood when you watch it. It's so silly that it's good, like anything that's a comedy not to be taken too seriously. Being as entertaining as it is, I feel it hits the nail on the head.

All things considered it's a good comedic anime. More harem and fantasy than anything else, it doesn't focus on realistic comedic scenarios as its strength like you'd see in Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun or Azumanga Daioh. It goes for really "wet" humor and goofy setups to get the laugh. That doesn't make it bad, it's just the style it was written in, and in the mid-90's this was to be expected almost. If you haven't seen it, check it out. Just be ready for a harem storyline, goofy jokes, and boobs too.

Especially given that everyone and their dog's probably seen Tenchi Muyo (Universe/TV aka the one who's page you're on). I'm also an unashamed fan. It's not a stretch to say that Tenchi is what got me into anime along with Outlaw Star on the legendary Toonami block a few yonks and a half back now.

Tenchi isn't just a harem anime. It's not going too far in my mind to say it is THE harem anime. A fantastic rom-com with some well placed scifi action and a nice bit of world building here and there, Tenchi has managed to create a
fantastic cast of characters with unique personalities and character design (following the silhouette rule of character design, that is, in silhouette, as many characters as humanly possible should be immediately identifiable or recognizable. It's also a trope setter for a lot of things we commonly see now, and it's not unfair to level a fair amount of blame for the scourge of super cute mascot characters we see these days on Sasami and Ryo-Ohki.

I'm not going to go into depth on this review. Suffice to say, it's worth your time. Enjoy.

Mecha anime shows are awesome but it's a shame that so few are released nowadays. Fortunately, AIC is bringing back one of their classics for older and newer fans. Is a reboot of Megazone 23 exciting enough to secure a successful crowdfunding campaign?